Two months after Markus Dohle announced a dramatic restructuring of Random House imprints, a move that eliminated Stephen Rubin's position as publisher of Doubleday Publishing Group, the Random House chairman yesterday named Rubin publisher at large, the New York Observer reported. His chief responsibilities will be to acquire books across the company's various divisions and imprints, including Knopf and Crown.

The announcement ends months of negotiations that began after Dohle told Random House staff in a memo explaining the restructuring that he would try to find a new job for Rubin rather than lose the executive who has been with the company for more than two decades. While at Doubleday, Rubin published Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as well as bestsellers by John Grisham and Pat Conroy.